


Tell Me About It

by Moonsetta



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Family Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 21:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12374196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsetta/pseuds/Moonsetta
Summary: Deathstroke has a new plan to break the Batboys' loyalties towards their mentor; it was more successful than he could have ever imagined.





	Tell Me About It

**Author's Note:**

> A really old work; forgive the poor quality.

Bruce couldn’t recall ever breathing this heavily or ever being this distressed by the emotions that surrounded him as he tended to keep emotion out of his well…life. His cowl-covered blue eyes shifted from the steel door in front of him, to each corner of the walls that surrounded him, to the threaded cables that held each of his arms stretched outwards to the side walls and breathed thinly of the air in the 7X7 cell the League had locked him in.

He would have asked; how could this have happened? IF he hadn’t already overanalyzed every little detail. Ra’s and he had played a dangerous game and Batman, had lost…everything. It had been five hours since he had become a prisoner of the Justice League and though a few members of the League had stopped by to look in, they hadn’t said anything. They just either stared sadly in at him, pitying him, or they glared, hating him for what he hadn’t done. Or had he? 

…

He hadn’t asked for anything since his imprisonment and, in turn, no one had offered him anything either.

Truthfully, Bruce Wayne believed that it was the first time in many years that he was…homesick. He wanted to be back at Wayne Manor, not the Batcave, not Wayne Tower, just the Manor. He wanted to be home.

The threaded wire had cut off the blood flow to his hands hours ago, and Bruce hated the numb feeling it left behind. His hands were useless and even though he had already theorized eight ways he could escape, there was still the League and the Watchtower security. Sure, bypassing it all was possible, but he was both physically and psychologically exhausted since even before the ‘complications’ had become reality. Even if he did manage to stop all the League members and override the security systems what would he do then? What was the point?

Oh yeah, his gloved hands were also still stained with the man’s blood. 

Maybe if he got to one of the temporary bases in Gotham City-No. Barbara and Leslie knew where all of them were.

Tim had left for Japan and by now, had already met with Cassandra. No such luck there.

Metropolis, Superman. No chance there. Star, Central, Jump, Steel, New York…no.

And Gotham was where all this trouble had begun. What was the city? It bled chaos. 

It had been a long time since the Bruce had no plans, and he hated it all with a sad passion. Though this time, he didn’t want to just take out his anger on the scums of the Gotham City streets, he wanted to just be able to reach the back wall, let his head fall back and just do…nothing. Nothing, for all of eternity. The sudden characteristic footsteps echoing down the hallway alerted Bruce that Clark was returning for the fifth time. So, that meant he must have his cousin patrolling Metropolis. Said footsteps stopped in front of the cell’s door and Bruce raised his head to stare pointedly at it. The cell wasn’t soundproof so…

The footsteps continued down the hall until there was a small scrape of boots that let Bruce know that the Kryptonian had taken to floating instead of walking. 

Great. The silence was back. There wasn’t much more to say about the silence, it was just…silence.

Just-SILENCE.

THUMP!

What was-?

Bruce blinked beneath his cowl and listened closely to any other out of place sound. There were none…or at least, none that he could pick up on. So, it was surprising when the cell door opened and a familiar face slipped inside.

“Dick.”

Wearing a visage of a stone-faced neutral air, the Dark Squire was standing in the doorway border-line glaring at the man in chains. The normally open, childish look the acrobat normally wore was gone, replaced by a stone coldness that even Batman was having a hard time reading. The younger man didn’t say anything, just…stared.  
Bruce cleared his dry throat and spoke again, “Nightwing.”

No doubt, this would turn into a circumstance bound argument. His protégé would begin shouting, ranting, accusing him of what he hadn’t done…or, once again, had he? The man’s blood was still on his gloves, and he remembered a bloody Batarang lodged in the neck before being yanked and…oh, he was going to be sick to his stomach if he thought about that much longer and since there was nothing in his stomach, Bruce knew he would only end up dry heaving. It hurt. All of it hurt the memory, the scrutiny he faced from the others, the emotions of betrayal that Dick would no doubt smother him with the moment he began the accusations.

So, it was shocking when his protégé simply walked forward, reached out and grabbed the wrist of his chain-forced outstretched right hand with an unnecessarily soft touch. Bruce just stared up at the masked eyes in shock until he saw the stone visage shift slightly. Immediately upon the change, Nightwing withdrew a vial of acid and without needing to confirm it; Bruce knew it was of low concentration. It would burn through the threaded metal slowly enough that he would be able to break it when it dissolved down to just a few threads, so he wouldn’t end up with any of the acid eating through his gloves and skin. Ah, he was already starting to get some feeling back his right hand.

When the acid had dissolved enough on both ropes of the threaded metal, a quick jerk from each arm released Bruce's hands. He glanced back up at his protégé, who was resealing the vial and slipping it back inside his left arm gauntlet.  
Wow, he missed his utility belt.

THUMP!

Nightwing spun around to face the open cell door and reached for the ecrisma sticks on his back. A few seconds passed and nothing else was heard by either hero. Blue finger striped hands released their hold on the electricity-powered weapons and fell to the younger hero’s sides. 

Another second passed before the younger hero turned his head sideways, one eye meeting the confused eyes of his mentor, “Let’s go.”

Bruce nodded, his face falling into a similar neutral visage before following his protégé out into the hallways of the Watchtower. This…this could all be cleared up later…when they were somewhere safe.

* * *

When Bludhaven was destroyed, it took millions of lives with it and Bruce knew that returning to the still deserted city was a defected form of self-torture for Dick. He was quick to answer the question in Bruce’s eyes though.

“Yes, the radiation is still decaying, that’s why they won’t look for us here…not for a while at least,” Nightwing said as he reached down through a pile of rubble to pull a hidden lever.

They had already sent the Bat Jet to New York City to fool the League into thinking Nightwing was taking Bruce to his base there. They probably wouldn’t go looking for them too soon; they’d think that Dick would want to talk to Bruce privately. Plus, after seeing how emotionally high strung Dick had been since the…event, they’d give them some time before they barged in and demanded their prisoner back. They were convinced that there was no way Bruce would talk his way out of his protégé’s scorn. At this point, it didn’t appear that Dick Grayson would be up to listening to anyone about anything anytime soon. 

Bruce didn’t hesitate to follow Nightwing into the emergency bunker beneath the contaminated city.

To be fair, compared to the city, the small space was in good condition. The walls were lined with lead, keeping out the radiation and hiding them from possible x-ray eyes given it wouldn’t hurt Superman or Supergirl to fly into the radiation filled city to look for them. Bruce only watched in something akin to pride as the younger hero walked to the far end of the bunker, pulled open a panel and flipped a light switch that made the bunker a bit easier to scope out. A glowing keypad appeared beside the switch where Nightwing quickly typed the code:

6122 591 477 181 25 19 15 14 

Hmm, clever.

A sliding steel panel covered the entrance and Bruce took the chance to analyze everything around him. The bunker held a long metal table where three open medical kits were pushed to the edge. He chose to ignore the fact that the table already had a large number of bloodstains. Great way to unnerve him, knowing his protégé had used this place enough that the bloodstains couldn’t be scrubbed away. Where Dick had just put in what Bruce assumed was a security code, stood a large cabinet that, no doubt, held various supplies. The entire place, through relatively orderly, was covered in a fair amount of dust. So, it hadn’t been used in a while. Just how old were those blood stains? There were two small shelves across from the metal table that held a fire extinguisher, a packet of powdered food, a bottle with a hole in the side, a broken dull knife blade, what appeared to be the wheel of one of those child red wagons, a dented pan, a coil of rope, a box of matches, a small canister of gas and a small heating plate. Overall, it was a cold place the Dark Knight could almost call home. 

“Sit down.”

Nightwing’s voice broke Bruce out of his thoughts and the older vigilante turned his head slightly to see that Dick was motioning to the blood-stained table. “I only used this place a few times, so we have plenty of supplies,” Nightwing said, pulling one of the opened medical kits forward before turning to walk back towards the large cabinet.

In the next few moments, Bruce wondered what was colder: The table beneath his now ungloved hands or the air between him and his boy? Also, now that he knew that Dick had only used this place a few times, he mentally shuddered at the thought of how much the other must have bled to leave these kinds of stains behind. As he had previously believed, the blood stains weren’t just on the table, they had soaked into and stained the metal. They would never come off again. 

Bruce’s body shivered and he rubbed his hands together, hoping the friction would warm them up more quickly. Dick returned with a gallon jug filled with fresh water and a plastic vial filled with an orange liquid. He had planned to turn back to fetch more supplies that he would need but caught the sight of Bruce’s hands. They were scarred and bruised as usual and a few fresh cuts littered them but they were still slightly bluish gray from lack of circulation. Instead of going back to the shelf, he reached out, took one into both of his and examined it with a displayed cold detachment. He abruptly dropped the hand and crossed the bunker to the twin shelves, taking down the small heating plate, the dented pan, the coil of rope and the small canister of gas, before stepping back to Bruce’s side. 

Yes, Bruce’s. He had pulled back his cowl, to reveal his warn out visage. Drooping, bloodshot eyes nearly floated above the dark circles as Dick met his mentor’s eyes once again. 

Bruce hadn’t really acknowledged the few bumps and scrapes he did have but given his protégé seemed to not want to do anything else at the moment, well… he made a quick detour back to the large cabinet to retrieve three clean towels from a stack within. Returning to Bruce’s side and moving medically through the silence Dick pulled a small tin cup from the dented pan and filled the cup full of water before handing it over to Bruce. Once he was certain the older hero was drinking, he filled the dented pan with water and placed it on the heating plate. He plugged the heating plate into a socket to the left of the table, pulled off his gloves and lightly touched the edge of the plate to ensure it was warming up. Once finding that it would take quite a while to heat up, he stepped sideways just as his mentor put down the now empty tin cup. 

He took Bruce’s left hand back in his and looked it over critically; he had some deeper wounds on his chest, back and arms, but they were all crusted over with dried blood. He preferred to wait for the hot water to clean and bandage them. Until then…his hands. The bluish gray color had clearly faded some but the skin was still cold and paste-like in texture.

“Dick?”

He ignored him, choosing instead to reach for the nearby medical kit to extract a bottle of peroxide, some cotton balls and a thin roll of bandages. Before using any of them though, he rubbed the hand between his own hands. It would be awfully weird if Bruce Wayne returned from his publicized “Trip to Florence” with no hands. He couldn’t let that happen. It would take a few minutes for each hand and…man! That hot plate was slow at warming up. There were much better facilities elsewhere but if anyone knew where they were…sigh, oh well, they had some time at least. 

“Dick, we need to talk.”

Dick had no reaction, not even a hidden one that let the Bruce know he was listening. 

“I never intended for any of this to happen.”

He was still being ignored.

Damn, he didn’t know Nightwing could be as cold as he was.

“Listen, I know we argued about him, but…”

The line faded away again when Dick gave him no recognition. Though the younger, satisfied that the bluish gray had faded to a pale peach, exchanged Bruce’s left hand for his right.

Bruce’s duller-than-usual blue eyes fell to the cut he had on his kneecap.

“Are you even going to talk to me again? It was horrible, but you wouldn’t have gotten me away from the League or hidden me away if you didn’t…”

Once again, the sentence trailed off.

It was two minutes later that Dick finally spoke again, after reviving Bruce’s right hand to a healthier color.

“If I didn’t care?”

“Yes.”

“Hn.”

Did Dick have to sound so much like Batman right now? Bruce was at a loss of what to do. He just remained quiet while Dick bandaged his hands. A sudden popping noise let the younger hero know that the water was finally hot.

They spent the rest of the time saying nothing. Bruce kept reforming what he could say in his mind repeatedly without accomplishing any vocal enlightens whatsoever while Dick just tried to keep himself together after everything that had happened. It was a lot and he was already borrowing self-strength that his body didn’t have to even give him. He just focused on wiping away dried blooded, cleaning the wounds and bandaging them.

At the end of it all, Dick simply busied himself with putting everything away except for the vial of orange liquid, the canister of gas, the coil of rope and the tin cup, which he refilled before putting what remained of the jug of water away with the other supplies. Only a few things left on the mental medical checklist, Dick put a few drops of the orange liquid into the cup of water before handing it back to Bruce, and simply scooped up the canister of gas and coil of rope.

The elder almost asked what it was, but he didn’t open his mouth to talk, only to drink the cup of water. The few drops of the orange liquid made the water taste drier than usual but even Bruce knew that he looked like someone who needed a long drug-induced nap. The only thing was, the table was cold and bloodstained. He received his answer when Dick pulled at a handle beneath the lit-up security panel and pulled out a cleverly hidden cot. Thankfully, it was NOT bloodstained. The thing was though, it was at the far end. If Dick had been injured so bad to bleed this much, he probably wouldn’t have made it to the far side of the room to use it. It had a clean, thick blanket and a pillow so thin it probably wouldn’t make a difference. 

Sure, he let himself be lead to it without protest but still, they needed to talk. He needed to know the truth. 

It was only when Bruce was half asleep that he realized that there was a thin strip of stained cloth around Dick’s shoulder.

“What’s this?” the older man asked, reaching out towards Dick who was sitting on the floor next to the cot, staring at the floor.

Only when Bruce’s fingertips brushed the bandage did the younger hero glance up, his eyes still behind his mask.

“You weren’t hurt when I last saw you. After…”

Yet again, Brue just couldn’t finish his sentence. 

“I’m not making excuses Dick, I honestly don’t remember-I don’t understand how I could have-”

This time, when Bruce’s sentence was cut off it was because his protégé slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Seriously Bruce, will you shut up? I never knew you could talk this much.”

Bruce shoved the hand away and narrowed his eyes, “Dick, you need to know-”

Fate obviously didn’t want him to finish a sentence today. The younger hero had replaced his hand over the older hero’s mouth, muffling his words again, but this time with a gentle touch rather than a slap. Dick peeled off his own mask with his right hand and just as the little voice in the back of Bruce’s head muttered here and there throughout his life; the younger man’s eyes told you…everything, even before he spoke.

“I know that it wasn’t you. You didn’t murder him. Near everyone’s been tricked, you were impersonated. The red haze is the only thing you remember because you were drugged. You were planted at the scene later. You didn’t kill him.”

Batman let out a very human-like exhale of relief and before he got the chance to ask, his protégé was explaining. 

“Everything pointed to you, the behavior as of late, you had a motive, you certainly COULD have done it, it was your weapon, the blood on you was fresh, the wounds he had matched your weapons, the blows you received I know match the way he defensively fought and you certainly looked like you had killed him.”

“But?”

Dick let out a short, breathless, painfully pinched laugh only three degrees short of a hiccup and one degree short of a sob, “I didn’t want to believe it, and I didn’t Bruce. Not for one moment, I just-”

Bruce finally let his hand fall away from his protégé’s shoulder, “Had your heart ripped out again.”

The younger hero took a deep breath, “Yeah.”

The silence that stretched between the two of them for the next minute consisted of the elder looking at the bunker ceiling while the younger watched invisible clouds of memories on the dirt floor. Finally, Dick cleared his throat and began again.

“The baddies messed one thing up though.”

Dick got no response, so he simply continued, “One piece of evidence Clark found was a ripped portion of the cloth of your glove on the Batarang. Sure, they got the material right, but it was too thin to be yours. It was only 1/5 of a centimeter thick, yours are half a centimeter. I knew then I could prove it wasn’t you. But first, I had to get you out of there.”

“And all that other evidence?”

“Since your glove wasn’t there, you weren’t there. All the remaining evidence will become circumstantial to the League. They’ll know it was planted or done by someone else entirely.”

“I could have done it,” was the quiet murmured response. 

“You should get some sleep, Bruce.”

“I could have.”

“No, you couldn’t have done it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know that you, or at least I believe that I know that you, love me too much…to…ever…possibly…hurt…me, like that.” 

A shaky breath followed the explanation and even as the sleeping orange medicine from earlier pulled Bruce Wayne under the spell of the Sandman, he was aware enough to reach out and take ahold of his child’s bandaged shoulder.

“It’s a parting gift from…”


End file.
